Floquet superradiance lattices in thermal atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how thermal motion in atoms can be harnessed as a control mechanism in Floquet-modulated superradiance lattices, enabling the simulation of topological phenomena at room temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach where thermal motion enhances control in Floquet superradiance lattices, allowing observation of topological effects in thermal atoms.

Findings

Observation of dynamic localization and delocalization in thermal atoms

Detection of chiral edge currents in superradiance lattices

Thermal motion acts as a control knob rather than noise

Abstract

Floquet modulation has been widely used in optical lattices for coherent control of quantum gases, in particular for synthesizing artificial gauge fields and simulating topological matters. However, such modulation induces heating which can overwhelm the signal of quantum dynamics in ultracold atoms. Here we report that the thermal motion, instead of being a noise source, provides a new control knob in Floquet-modulated superradiance lattices, which are momentum-space tight-binding lattices of collectively excited states of atoms. The Doppler shifts combined with Floquet modulation provide effective forces along arbitrary directions in a lattice in frequency and momentum dimensions. Dynamic localization, dynamic delocalization and chiral edge currents can be simultaneously observed from a single transport spectrum of superradiance lattices in thermal atoms. Our work paves a way for simulating Floquet topological matters in room-temperature atoms and facilitates their applications in photonic devices.